


We'll Always Have

by oxymora (oxymoron)



Category: Casablanca (1942)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Multi, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 15:02:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1095402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oxymoron/pseuds/oxymora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rick stays in Paris. Things progress.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We'll Always Have

**Author's Note:**

  * For [bliumchik](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bliumchik/gifts).



> This is for bliumchick, who asked for a Casablanca canon divergence AU in which Rick stays in Paris, and there's lots of Nazi fighting and threesomes. This might not be quite that fic, but as close as I could get. Happy Yuletide!
> 
> In the spirit of the movie, I am taking some liberties with history here. Think of it as the Hollywood version of WWII Paris.

**June 1940**

The lights are out when Ilsa gets back to the house, but the smell of gin leads her safely to the kitchen. Richard is slumped over the rickety table, but his voice is hard, barely slurred.

“Welcome home, kid. How was your day? Your husband asked about you earlier. I think he needs a sponge bath.”

She dumps her groceries on the table and fumbles for the light switch. By the time she has found it, her voice is steady. “Clean yourself up. You reek.” She doesn’t wait for a reply.

They chose the attic for Victor. It is probably a healthier spot than a damp cellar, but the baking June heat doesn’t help with the fever he is still running. Even this late in the evening, the attic is too hot. She can see Victor shaking underneath the thin, sweat-drenched sheets, can hear his lungs wheeze and rattle. His eyes are closed, but when she moves closer, he turns his head towards her.

“Ilsa?”

“Yes, dear,” she says.

“I dreamed you were gone.”

She takes his hand and squeezes it gently. “I’m here. I’ve come to help you bathe, if you want to.”

Victor moves to sit up, and she quickly supports his back. “I think I do,” he says. His voice sounds so unsteady, almost childish – nothing like the deep, self-assured voice of the man who said “I do” two years ago.

She carefully undoes his buttons, pulls down pants that hang too low on raised hipbones. By the time she starts running the sponge over his shoulders, Victor is half-asleep again, and she is left to her thoughts.

Victor is sick now, but he will be getting better. He will. He has to. She is stuck in a house on the outskirts of Paris with an invalid and a bitter, drunken stranger, surrounded by an army and cut off from the rest of the world, but she can bear it because Victor needs her and he will get better. He will recover and they will move and Richard--

Richard will never forgive her. Sometimes she doesn’t quite know whether the Richard she knew was real at all. This Richard -- the new Richard -- stares at her with dark, hard eyes over the rim of a glass while she can’t bear to look at him. She doesn’t know why he is staying with them at all.

The old Richard, the Richard she knew, stayed because she asked him to, as she knew he would. When Ilsa learned that her husband was alive and in Paris, and that the safehouse he had been taken to had become compromised, Richard had seemed the only person she could turn to. Ilsa has often wished she could have come up with another solution since then. Richard had held her throughout her sobbed confession, and then he had left her wordlessly to make a few hurried phone calls and by the end of the day, the three of them had been set up in this house. When she woke up the next morning, she had found him in the kitchen with bleary eyes and an empty bottle. Since then, he seems to have chosen that spot for himself.

Victor’s body smells foul. Ilsa wants to hold her nose, she wants to cry, she wants to scream, she wants to run out of the house and take the next train to Marseilles and never look back. Instead, she carefully smoothes down her husband’s hair and presses a kiss to his temple (next to the angry red welt that leaks pus in places) as she runs the sponge over his body in slow, methodical strokes.

**July**

There was a chess board left in one of the cupboards, and Rick has taken to playing against himself. It doesn’t have quite the same appeal as drinking himself numb, but he guesses his liver will thank him, or something to that effect. He can’t quite explain why he’s still in Paris at all – no, that’s a lie. He knows full well that he can’t leave Ilsa behind. Not even now. His moral fortitude, however, goes only so far. Laszlo and his ilk can go and fight for Paris and the world to their hearts’ content. Rick’s Paris has been thoroughly burned and razed to the ground. They’re welcome to it.

The game is almost over when someone appears in the doorway. It is Victor Laszlo. Rick has hardly seen him since the day they met – Laszlo has been up in the attic, and Rick has taken care to avoid that part of the house. He raises an eyebrow.

“Should you be out of bed, Mr. Laszlo?”

Laszlo steadies himself against the doorway with a wry smile.

“Don’t tell my wife, please. She wouldn’t approve, I fear.”

“There’s very little danger of my telling your wife anything, or of her listening to me, I’m afraid,” Rick shrugs. “Please“ – he gestures to the chair opposite his – “have a seat. I’m about to win.”

Laszlo takes the chair. “Thank you, Mr. Blaine. Isn’t winning par for the course when you play yourself?

“A prime reason of playing against oneself, if you ask me. I don’t like to lose, and I don’t like to be cheated.”

Laszlo only offers a polite nod. There is something unbearably correct about him, the way he sits upright in his chair and studies the board, refusing to be goaded, that grates on Rick.

“By the way, I congratulate you. You look terrible, which is a vast improvement from the last time I saw you, when you looked like death warmed over.”

“Thank you. In fact, from what I understand I owe you a great credit for my recovery, Mr. Blaine.”

“Call me Rick. And I don’t believe I’ve done much except sit here and play chess. There was the occasional drink involved.” If this conversation continues, he will need another drink, too.

“Then you must call me Victor. Ilsa says you were invaluable. From what I understand, securing this house for us has kept you in Paris, even though you are on the Nazis’ black list.”

“My doctor has recommended the Parisian summer air for my health.”

Laszlo’s voice is firm. “You don’t have to accept my thanks, but you still have them, Mr. Blaine.”

“It’s Rick. Anyway, you are the last man on earth who owes me anything.”

Victor Laszlo leans forward, looking him straight in the face. Suddenly Rick remembers how much he used to admire this man, when he was nothing more than the author of a Résistance publication to him.

“I am not going to pretend that I don’t know what you are talking about. There was obviously something between you and Ilsa while I was imprisoned, presumed dead. As there is no one to blame, I will ask no questions – either about the past or present. All I want is for Ilsa to be happy, which I know she is not.”

Rick picks up the white queen and studies it carefully. “I’d say you are either a saint or a fool, except I don’t believe in the first and I know you’re not the latter.”

“How about I’m a man who loves his wife?”

He runs his fingers over the carved wood, looking for flaws and finding none. “You love her that much?”

“Ilsa has spent the last six weeks nursing me, risking her life for me every single day, without any assurance of my recovery, when I urged her to leave me.” Victor draws a deep breath and exhales soundly. “Yes, I love her that much.”

“Thank you for the offer, Victor,” he says, putting the queen back to the other lost figures, “but as I said earlier, I don’t like cheating, and right now I don’t think your wife likes the sight of me. And furthermore, if she could hear us talk about her like another pawn on this chess board, she’d hit us both over the head.”

“All right,” Victor says. “I’ve said my piece. I’ll get back to bed before I get caught.”

When he’s gone, Rick keeps looking at the empty chair for quite a while. It seems that his previous impression of Victor Laszlo needs some adjustment.

 

**August**

Ilsa’s days have developed a certain routine. She takes care of Victor. She goes out to meet Victor’s contacts, carrying messages from and to Victor. She does shopping and household chores. She still avoids the kitchen as much as possible. It turns out that Richard, now that he is slightly more sober, is a surprisingly decent cook. It is another reminder of how little she knows about him.

Richard and Victor have formed a strange kind of friendship. She had thought that – as much as Victor could hate anybody apart from the Nazis – he must hate Richard (and possibly even her). He must at least have guessed at parts of the past. But Victor has never asked questions, and he has been on good terms with Richard ever since he has been able to move about the house.

She has grown so used to avoiding Richard that it takes her a few days to notice that she is no longer the only one who leaves the house on a regular basis. She sneaks back into the house after curfew one evening and finds Victor alone in the living room, poring over his typewriter.

She gives him a perfunctory kiss on the cheek. “Good evening, darling. Is there anything to eat? I am starving.”

Victor smiles up at her and reaches for her hand. “I’m sorry, my dear. Rick has gone out again, and I don’t think he left anything. We’ll have to fend for ourselves tonight.”

“Again?” she asks.

“He’s been out these last three nights, I think. You didn’t notice?”

“But it’s past curfew! He shouldn’t be out at all, least of all after dark! Why didn’t you stop him?”

“Says the woman who has been running from one secret meeting to the next for weeks at all hours. I’m not stopping you, though I wish I could. Why should I stop him, then? We must all do our part. Ilsa, stop gripping my hand so hard.”

Victor’s voice is mild, free of censure, but the words cut through her. She feels caught. Ashamed, she drops the hand she has been clutching.

“I am sorry. Yes, of course, you’re right. I’m a scared little girl, that’s all,” she tries to laugh it off. More than anything else she hopes he will drop the subject.

“You are the most courageous woman I have ever met. Being afraid for our loved ones is what makes us human.”

She turns away to the window. “I—don’t say things like that, Victor.”

“But I think I have to say something, Ilsa. If you—“

The sound of the door silences them both. There is a stifled groan from the hallway. Ilsa runs towards it and finds Richard slumped against the wall, one arm cradled to his chest. There is blood on his coat sleeve. Some distant part of her brain observes clinically that it will stain the carpet if he stays where he is.

“Richard!”

She kneels down next to him, gripping his good arm.

“What’s happened? What do you need?”

Rick grimaces. “It’s a scrape. Nothing serious; just get me a bandage and a brandy.”

Victor has come into the hallway. “I’ll take care of that. Ilsa, can you get him out of that coat and keep pressure on the wound?”

She nods. She’s crying, the clinical part of her brain catalogues. She blinks through the tears to get clear view of Rick’s arm and reaches for his sleeve with shaking fingers. Rick stops her with a finger under her chin.

“Hey, hey kid. It’s all right. I’m all right.” He gives her a forced smile. “I wasn’t sure you cared.”

She wipes her eyes. “Of course I care,” she says, and her voice still shakes, but her fingers are steady now. “Now let’s get you stitched up.”

Richard slurs “Here’s looking at you kid” before he slumps against the wall again.

 

**September**

The wound that Rick keeps calling a scrape leads to a week’s worth of fever and bed rest for him, followed by a slow recovery. Victor, who is finally starting to feel something like himself again, has transitioned from patient to nurse. He is much too glad to be doing something to object to the title, as Rick seems to expect. Truth be told, Victor has become rather fond of disproving Rick’s preconceptions about him. He’s becoming rather fond of Rick in general. He is an excellent chess player and – once you pierce through the sarcastic shell – a good conversationalist. Given that Rick and Ilsa still talk as little as possible to each other (though their conversations have become much more civil, if also much more awkward), Victor is currently Rick’s only social contact. As much as Victor enjoys their talks, though, he is itching to be out and doing something, and very sure that Rick feels the same. Instead, they sit around and drink cognac.

Victor covers his glass with his hand before Rick can refill his glass a third time.

“I don’t think my wife would approve.”

“To the joys of matrimony.” Rick raises the glass mockingly.

“Now I understand why you decided to leave a trail of broken-hearted women in your wake. None of them could wean you from your bottle.” The sentence has left his mouth before he can think about it. Apparently, two cognac are already one too many.

“Well, there was this one girl. Funny story, that. Turns out, she was already married.” There is bitterness in Rick’s voice, but no accusation. He knocks back the glass. “And how do you know they were all women?”

It’s an obvious attempt to shock him into changing the subject, and Victor accepts gratefully.

“I suppose I don’t know that.”

“And the possibility doesn’t disgust you?”

“I have made a principle never to be disgusted by anything that has made people my fellow prisoners.”

“Is that a nobler variant of ‘the enemy of my enemy’?”

Victor smiles. “If you want it to be? Besides, I went to a boarding school. You know what people say about those.”

In fact, his infamous boarding school experience consists of witnessing a few awkward fumblings in dark rooms, but Rick Blaine doesn’t have to know that.

Rick gives him a long look over the board.

“The longer I know you, the less you turn out to be what I expected, Mr. Laszlo.”

“That’s curious. The longer I know you, the more you turn out to be exactly what I expected, Mr. Blaine.”

Rick scoffs. “What, a true drunkard?”

“A true patriot and friend.”

 

**October**

She will not leave the house. She will not. Victor and Richard will both be back any minute now. They must. It is only natural that the first meeting Victor can attend in person will take longer than usual. Richard is with him. Richard will take care of him. She is behaving ridiculously; she has never been this anxious when she has gone to a meeting herself.

She might just go to the corner, see if she sees anything. Just the corner.

The night air is uncomfortably cold by now. Ilsa draws her shawl closer and clutches the purse with her false papers in one hand, the small revolver that she always carries these days with the other. Is that them? Yes, it certainly is. There they are, both safe and sound. She sighs with relief. They can both scold her for coming out now, she won’t care.

Ilsa is about to walk closer to them when another figure emerges from the shadows.

“Halt! Ausweise vorzeigen!”

Ilsa can see all three figures clearly in the light of the single gas lantern: Rick, Victor, and the man in the SS uniform, back turned to her, hand on his holster.

Back in Norway, her father liked to talk about hunting deer. “Wait for the moment of perfect stillness,” he’d say. “There’s always a moment of perfect stillness.” The three figures in the gaslight are very still. Ilsa shoots.

It all goes very quick afterwards. Rick drags the body into a backyard while Victor and Ilsa collect their things, and then they are off. The nearest safehouse is even farther from the city proper, and not a house at all, just an abandoned hut. There is a bed, though, with musty sheets and blankets.

As soon as the door is closed, Richard draws her into his arms and kisses her. Ilsa closes her eyes, some of the adrenaline fades away and it’s spring again. For a moment, it is spring, Richard loves her, and nothing can ever harm her. Then she remembers where she is and with whom. But before she can draw away, two more arm wrap around her from behind and Victor is kissing her temple and murmuring endearments in her ear. And later she will wonder how in the world it all happened (and then, even later, she will wonder how she never saw it coming at all), but in this moment, it seems perfectly natural to kiss and be kissed, to cling to Richard and lean back into Victor’s arms and let all three of them find comfort in each other. She watches Richard reach over and run his fingers through Victor’s hair and feels Victor’s hand fisting in Rick’s shirt next to hers and is filled with a sense of utter belonging.

She wakes up naked, and with a naked body on either side of her. To her sleepy mind, the whole setting feels so utterly right that she simply huddles closer to one of them. Richard throws his arm around her, and tucks her into his side. “’Morning, kid.”

She laughs. She can’t remember the last time she laughed, and she suddenly can’t understand why. Laughing feels wonderful. “Good morning to you, too!”

“Shh! Don’t wake him.” There is something in Rick’s eyes when he looks at Victor that Ilsa can’t name, almost (but not quite) the way he looks at her at times. It warms her inside.

“I have been thinking, Ilsa. We can’t stay in Paris. They either know or suspect Victor is here."

“He won’t want to leave. He’d think of it as running away.”

“I don’t care what he wants. The world needs Victor Laszlo alive and free. Victor needs you, and maybe me, and I need both of you to be safe. Let him worry about his work, and you and I worry about him.”

It sounds wonderfully sensible. She presses a kiss to Richard’s collar bone.

“All right. Where do we go?”

“Well, Sam has been writing some very interesting letters these last few months. How would you like to go to Casablanca, kid?”


End file.
